


That's Not How I Remember It

by Crejhov



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: A/B/O, Darcy Lewis is Tony Stark's Daughter, F/M, First Meetings, Hydra, Multi, Omegaverse, Rescue Mission, Slight supernatural, Soulmates, a bit more supernatural
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-21
Updated: 2017-08-27
Packaged: 2018-04-22 18:51:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,927
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4846484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crejhov/pseuds/Crejhov
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of various prompts drabbles from Tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. (Darcy/Bucky) Who's Ass is this?

Bucky opened the door with a bang and put a bullet in the head of the three AIM agents in the room. They dropped to the floor and a horse shout of triumph emitted from one of the women in the room. They were both tied to separate chairs that were facing each other. Only one of them was conscious.

“Doctor Jane Foster?”

Her narrow shoulders sagged and she glanced to the other woman. “Tell me you’re here to rescue us?”

“I’m with the Avengers, we’re here to rescue you and your assistant Darcy Lewis.” He jerked his chin at the other woman. “This her?”

Doctor Foster’s eyes grew glassy but she didn’t cry. “Yeah, they gave her something that knocked her out.”

He nodded and moved forward to untie her from her hair. There were gouges in the cement beneath the metal legs of the chair like she had been hoping around in it. If her personality assessment was true, then that’s probably exactly what she did.

As soon as her legs were untied she was up like a shot and kneeling next to Lewis. Doctor Foster brushed the hair out of Lewis’ face and called her name gently.

Bucky began the same process of freeing Lewis. “Was AIM able to get any information from of either of you?”

Doctor Foster licked her thumb and wiped a smudge off of Lewis’ cheek. “No, they’re idiots.” She didn’t elaborate and didn’t really need to.

The agents who had taken Foster and Lewis had been idiots. Not only were they in a stereotypical warehouse at the docks with the van they had used in the kidnapping parked right out front, but one of them had live tweeted the entire abduction. It was ridiculous.

Once Lewis was untied, he hefted her over his shoulder and made for the door. Foster followed behind him silently until they were outside where Barton was waiting for them.

“Doctor Foster.” He nodded to the tiny woman at his side.

Said tiny woman narrowed her eyes at him. “I remember you, you’re the one who stole Darcy’s iPod.”

Clint gave a nervous chuckle and took a step back. “You – uh – remember that?”

Foster fisted both hands on her hips and opened her mouth to no doubt give Clint a dressing down when the soft mutter of the woman over his shoulder interrupted. “Who’s ass is this?”

The three standing people all froze and side-eyed each other.

“It’s a nice ass.” And then Darcy Lewis gave him a firm squeeze which he clearly telegraphed to the other two with a straightening of his spine.

“Darcy!” Jane disappeared from view, hopefully to make her assistant stop molesting him. Not that it didn’t feel nice, but the circumstances weren’t ideal either.

Lewis did not stop. In fact she put both hands on his butt, not to leverage herself up, but to knead at the muscle. Clint, who had taken more steps back was grinning like a lunatic. Bucky couldn’t even muster up a glare under the assault on his backside.

“Is this your ass, Jane?” Lewis slurred.

Foster made a tutting sound. “Your still high, get some sleep.”

Lewis hummed and finally released him. The relief was short lived when she then wrapped her arms around his waist and hummed into the small of his back. Bucky turned to Foster who shrugged in a clear ‘what can you do’ manner.


	2. (Darcy/Bucky) Meeting your Match Part 1

“Miss Lewis?”

Darcy opened a pair of heavy lids to see a woman she didn't immediately recognize six short inches from her face. The shriek that erupted from her scratchy throat was more of a croak. She was no less graceful when she flung herself off the other side of the bed. At least the sheets had tangled around her to maintain the last shred of her modesty.

The overhead lights flicked on and Darcy was met with an unfamiliar ceiling and what she now recognized as the unimpressed stare of former Deputy Director Maria Hill. “Lewis.”

“Maria Hill.”

The expertly sculpted raised eyebrow was a perfect representation of the lack of sympathy she felt for Darcy. Still, she could fake a wince. Darcy's whole body felt like one big pulled muscle and now she was on the floor. The dirty floor. “Where am I?”

“You don't know?” 

Darcy sat up and draped her top half over the edge of the bed. “It's too early to think.” Her nose wrinkled when she caught a whiff of the bed. That was alpha. That was a powerful smell, like what she imagined – “Oh shit.” And she flung herself away from the bed once more. The tender muscles between her thighs aching with significance at this new information. 

She scooted on her ass until she had nearly lost the sheet covering her chest and had her back pressed to the wall. She looked up to Maria Hill who was watching her, face completely blank. 

“Darcy?” Jane called, looking small in the doorway, her form back-lit by street lamps. So It wasn't morning even if it felt like it.

“I asked you to wait in the car until I could clear the scene of any hostiles, Doctor Foster.” Maria Hill said, looking supremely annoyed with arms crossed over her spandex (“Carbon fiber composite material, Lewis).

Darcy didn't know who she thought she was kidding, Jane Carrie Foster was concentrated hostile in flannel and orange rain boots.

Jane spotted Darcy on the floor and rushed over, crouching sown beside her. “Darcy! Are you okay? Why are you naked? What's that smell? Is that you?” Jane leaned in close looking with squinted eyes roaming over her face and then down her body. “Are those hickies? Have you been here having sex this whole time?”

“Foster.” Maria Hill tried to warn but Jane was on a roll. 

“We've been worried sick! Maria thought Hydra had taken you!” She grasped Darcy's shoulders like she wanted to shake some sense into her. “Would it have killed you to pick up a phone!? Its been six days since your phone cut off! Maria had to track you through the GPS in your phone!”

Darcy kept one hand clutching the top of her sheet (the door was still open and she wasn't offering a free show to any Joe walking by) and placed the other one over top of one of Jane's. “I think I had a heat?” It felt more real saying it out loud. 

Jane blinked and sat back on her haunches, giving Darcy another once over. She frowned and turned to glance at the rumpled bed before turning her attention to Maria Hill. 

“We'll need to test your hormone levels to confirm. Do you know who the alpha was?”

Darcy shook her head. It was all a terrifying blank. Oh god, what if it was a married man? Or some pimple faced teenager? Or even a Hydra agent? 

“Take Lewis to the car while I speak with the manager. With any lucky he'll have a description and a credit card receipt.” She said before marching out.

“Let's get you dressed, where are your clothes?” She said before her eyes traveled up the wall and she frowned. “I think there's some sweats on the quinn jet you can use.”

Darcy followed her line of sight up to her shirt that was hanging of a wall sconce and shredded to bits. Huh. How about that?

As it turned out, Darcy had disappeared in transit from Culver's campus, where she was closing out the lease on her apartment, to New York City, where her new apartment was. When she didn't show up for work on Monday, Jane had gone looking for her. By Wednesday she had involved Maria Hill in the matter. Super-spy-on-the-down-low Maria Hill had used the Stark resource's at her disposal and found Darcy in Baltimore, holed up in a Red Roof Inn. Sighting a possible emergency, Maria Hill took one of the quinn jets and attempted to leave Jane behind while she flew to Baltimore. 

Jane goes where she wants and no trespassing sign, razor wire fence or an army of Dark Elves is gong to stop her, let alone Maria Hill; no matter how tight that hair bun was. 

Two hours later and she was at Stark tower with Doctor Cho poking at her. She confirmed that Darcy's hormones did indeed indicate that she was in the last stages of a heat. Which explained how she had gone from tired and achy upon waking up, to nauseous and doubled over with pain in such a short time span. 

Like all alphas and omegas, she had naturally had her first heat at the onset of puberty. According to her high school health class, that one heat was all over 74% of the population experienced. The rest who did experience more than one heat were usually couples alpha/omega couples whose pheromones had synced to the point where they could achieve a heat. And then there were the 0.7% that Darcy had just found herself in. The percentage that upon crossing paths during peek fertilization were thrown head first into a severe heat.

According to Dr. Cho, theoretically over half the population could come across their perfect biological reproductive match. She had said it was a matter of chance that most mating matches met and reproduced. The problem was, that most matches were complete strangers who were suddenly at the mercy of their hormones. In the past, many cultures had urged matches to stay mated claiming that the alpha and omega were soulmates. And that seemed like a reasonable conclusion until you heard the stories about domestic abuse and murder suicides. 

The simple fact was, that no one liked to be told what to do, much less who to do. To be forced to be societal obligation was a recipe for disaster. Not for the first time, Darcy wished she had been born a beta (79% of the entire population. 

Fortunately, Darcy didn't have that problem as the alpha in her match had run off before the heat was even over. While she was glad that she didn't have to deal with the awkwardness of waking up to a (married/teenage/Hydra) stranger, it would have been nice if he could have stuck around for a post-coital cuddle. The sharing of pheromones was what soothed the body from the trauma of a hormone induced sex marathon. 

Dr. Cho gave her some meds to help speed up the process. The vindictive thought that the alpha was out there suffering for longer than she would be did good things for her soul. Especially considering all the bruises he had left all over her body. She could hardly sit down without wincing from all the hand and finger marks over her thighs, ass and hips. Dr. Cho had given her a triple steroid cream to help them heal faster.

In the end, the medication had sped the heat up fast enough that Darcy only needed to spend a day under observation before she could go home. Jane had stayed with her the whole time, dabbing the sweat from her forehead with a cool cloth and watching Friends reruns with her. Jane was good people. 

Slowly, Darcy and Jane got on the elevator that lead to the underground parking garage. That's where they met Thor. Thor was not and alpha, omega or a beta. Thor was an Alien Prince God and no one was going to question that he didn't fit into any of the designation. Jane was an alpha and she certainly didn't give a fuck. The only thing Darcy cared about was that he gave good hug and she was in need of a hug. Thor was happy to oblige. 

“I'm glad to see you are fairing well, Darcy.” He said, squeezing her into his godly chest. “You'll need your strength in the coming months.” 

He let her go and Darcy leaned into Jane who was looking up to Thor. “Oh? Are Sif and Volstagg coming back for another visit?”

Even Tony Stark would need to save his strength to party Asgardian style. Darcy appreciated the warning because she would need a few months to save up the energy and to accumulate the sick days she'd need for the following hangover. 

“Nay, for the younglin Darcy now carries.” 

Of course, Thor, God of Thunder and Fertility. 

“Crap.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I'm thinking about a part 2 in Bucky's POV. What do you think?


	3. (Darcy/Bucky) Meeting Your Match Part 2

During his first stint as a captive of Hydra, Bucky had been given an experimental serum. It had made him sick as a dog and delusional to boot. He had thought he was finally going to die. It had always been a reality going off to war. Millions had died and he would have been just one more. But then Steve had come and rescued him. Little Steve who'd pick a fight with a brick wall had been given a does of the same type of serum only his worked. Bucky's worked too, but not until after he'd fallen from the train and been exposed to some kind of radiation bath once he was in Hydra's clutches again. 

The serum offered him all kinds of advantages over his fellow man. Enhanced strength, speed, endurance, and senses were a few of the more notable. He was also offered a degree of immunity to disease, toxins, poisons, and even his own hormones. It was this advantage against his hormones that allowed him to regain (mostly) rational thought while in the midst of a heat and for all his trying he couldn't stop thinking of those four days.

For months he had been plagued with the memories of his time spent with the omega. He'd toiled nights away while on stakeouts wondering who she was, where she was now, and what she was doing. Remembering the feel of her soft, silky skin sliding against his was a particular punishment he indulged in all too often. He'd treasured their pheromone fueled time together more than he had any right to. 

Meeting her without actually meeting her was one of the good things that had happened to him after breaking free of Hydra's choke chain. Sometimes he entertained fantasies of what would have happened if he had revealed himself while Maria Hill, agent, former SHIELD, Stark Industries, not Hydra, and the other woman, unknown, had escorted the omega out of the motel. Could he have convinced her to follow him? Would she have forgiven him for disrupting her life? For putting her in danger? 

The right answer to each question was no. She couldn't go with him. She couldn't forgive him. He was too tarnished, too soiled to be worthy of any forgiveness. It was the same reason he didn't let Steve catch up to him. He didn't deserve redemption. He could never rack up enough good to erase the bad. And it wasn't until he was cauterizing a bullet wound on his abdomen with silver nitrate that he finally admitted to himself that he didn't have the resources to wipe out Hydra on his own. For every base he destroyed three more sprung up. He had the knowledge but not the man power.

And so, in Cincinnati he pulled up a chair and sat down at a table with a surprised Steve and his partner Sam Wilson. Steve kept his eyes solely focused on him while Wilson assessed the bustling dinner around them. It was unnecessary. He didn't want to hurt them and certainly not any of the civilians. 

“I surrender.” 

Now Wilson was focusing on him but Steve had let his shoulders slump in what looked like exhaustion. Bucky didn't blame him. He was exhausted too. A year and a half running from the world and straight into battle would do that to any man. Except maybe that alien Steve hung around with now. 

“We were about to order pie and coffee,” He said with delicate words. “You want some?”

He nodded. “They got cherry?”

It took three days of arguing over the phone before Steve could get Howard's kid to agree to let him bring Bucky back. According to the files, he was the one who had tampered with the car that killed Howard and his girl. His kid had every right to hold that against him, God knows he hated himself for it. 

One of the many stipulation's made was that Bucky had to stay in lockup in the tower and under guard. Steve only agreed when Bucky told him he would. He'd also need to have a psych evaluation and pending the result have daily sessions with a vetted therapist. The thought of talking about the things going on in his head set his teeth on edge. But it was a necessary evil he agreed to all the same. 

He told the therapist about the omega and after a few weeks he told Steve. Only Steve didn't look surprised. He'd always been a shit liar.

“It's how we picked up your trail in Baltimore.” He admitted after three days of silence from Bucky. 

Bucky was being forced to bare his soul to everyone, like hell he was going to put up with secrets from Steve. 

“The omega, her name is Darcy Lewis.” He took a seat next to Bucky at the breakfast table and grabbed an orange but didn't peel it. “She's the assistant to Dr. Jane Foster. They work out of one of the labs here and sometimes at an observatory upstate.”

Bucky glared at his lumpy oatmeal. “Foster, I know that name.” He'd wanted to be angry and argue with Steve. He wanted to know about the omega more. 

“Thor's girl.”

The alien. 

He was quiet for a long time, trying to pick the best question. “I didn't cause her too much trouble?”

Steve tilted his head back and forth. “I guess not too much. They gave her medication to speed the heat along.” That didn't sound like a whole truth. 

Bucky put his spoon down, there was no use trying to finish eating with his gut churning in turmoil. “Does she know about me?”

He set the orange back into the bowl of fruit in the center of the table. “No. At the time we needed to keep you're identity under wraps.” He said. “Hill and Stark were still weeding out the spy's in the company and if any of them had found out about Lewis...”

It would have been bad for her. Worse even. 

“I want to see her.” He stood up, the chair legs screeching against the tile floor. 

“Buck there's some –“

“I don't have to talk to her, I just want to see her.” He dumped the oatmeal and left the bowl in the sink. When he turned around to face Steve, it was to see his still-friend looking pained. “Please, Steve, do this for me.”

He got in the elevator and pressed the button for the lobby with every intention of working out his frustration on some helpless gym equipment. Steve had suggested that it helped him, but he;d never get the chance. Not when the elevator stopped at one of the lower research floors and Thor stepped on. 

Thor was a big guy and had to duck just to enter an elevator, so Bucky excused himself for not noticing the two women behind him. Thoughts on how to discreetly ask about Darcy Lewis stopped when he saw the woman herself after Thor stepped to the side. 

“Bucky! How fair you today?”

He said something, later he wouldn't remember what it was but it appeased the alien. His eyes locked on the tiny brunette before him. She was just as beautiful as he remembered and she was staring right back at him. Her brows drawn together and her achingly red lips parted. 

“Allow me to introduce you to my lady, Jane, and my friend, Darcy.”

It was happening again. His vision hazing red around the edges. The enclosed space speeding the process along. She leaned forward, inhaling his scent through her parted lips. Bucky was sure his pupils were as blown as hers. 

“What's that smell?” He struggled to stay aware of his surroundings but thought was fading fast. “Oh, shit. Not again. Thor heard them upstairs, I'll call Maria.”

And then she was in his arms again and nothing else existed outside of the two of them. 

Just as before, he woke up two days into the heat. They were in a room that wasn't his but he recognized as one of the guest rooms. There was a note tapped to the door with directions to the mini fridge and instructions to take the pills provided. It had been difficult to trick Darcy into swallowing the pills. Still at the mercy of their shared hormones, they continued to rut each other. It took two and a half days before they started to work. 

Darcy woke up sober while he was still locked inside of her. Both groaned when she'd moved too far from him and he'd pulled her back into his chest. For the last several days, he had touched and kissed every inch of her body. Now, he felt like a villain for it and the drawn out silence only made it worse. 

“So, hi.” She was perfectly still. Every muscle tense including the ones surrounding him. A torture he didn't deserve. 

“Hi.” 

She clenched at the sound of the rough voice in her ear and on reflex he pushed into her further. 

There was another long beat of silence before she spoke again. So, are you the same omega from Baltimore?”

“Yeah.” He'd thought of so many things to talk to her about and now that she was here all he could do was offer one word answers. 

“Good, good. I was starting to think something might be wrong with me.” Her nerves seemed to take the form of chatter rather than the silence his manifested. “Oh, God! I need a phone? How long until your knot goes down? You didn't get me pregnant again did you?”

“Again?” His grip on her hip tightened and her grip around him tightened in response, his own hips pushing into her again causing them both to moan. 

“Yeah, so, we have a son.” She said. “God, I'd rather have this conversation face to face, you know?” He knew. 

“I have a son?” 

He'd of course fantasized about the what if he'd knocked her up. Would it be a girl or a boy? Did twins run in her family? Who would they favor? 

“Yeah, his name's Jack. He's three months old.” She said and shifted her hips. “If you're interested, you can meet him.”

Despite the awkward and shitty situation their biology had forced them into, Bucky found himself grinning. “I'd like that.” He had a son.

“Yeah?”

He moved until he could wrap both arms around her in a hug and buried his face into her wild curls. “Yeah.” This was the mother of his child. 

She patted his arm and he could hear the smile in her voice. “That's a relief. Could you imagine that where's-my-daddy conversation?” He squeezed her tighter in response. “So what do you think the chances are that I'm pregnant again. Because I was on birth control last time too, not that Jack seemed to care.”

They had a daughter in May and named her Kathleen. Thor walked her down the isle as the flower girl when they got married four months after that. He didn't deserve them, not for all his sins. But God, he loved them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it for this story line. I hope you enjoyed!


	4. (Darcy/Bucky) Help A Girl Out?

Dripping in sweat, guilt and a variety of other unhealthy emotions, Bucky left the swinging punching bag for the bench where he'd left his water. Steve swore that time spent beating the shit out of gym equipment did wonders for him. For Bucky, it just pissed him off more. He'd rather something that hit back, something that could fully appreciate the rage barely bottled up inside of him. Say, like a base full of Hydra agents?

Steve and the rest of his teammates thought he needed a little more time before he was ready to get back out in the action. Well what the fuck did they know? Sure Thor was hundreds and hundreds of years old. Sure Steve spent seventy years in the ice. Sure Howard's kid had been captured during a war. Sure Banner knew the lung squeezing anxiety of being on the run. Sure the Widow had been groomed as an assassin. Sure Clint – fuck it, he didn't know shit about Clint other than he kept candy stashed in the vents like a toddler. In any case, while each had seen things and suffered others, they couldn't fathom the measures Hydra had gone to assure his compliance. 

Talking didn't work. Meditation didn't work. Going out for a lay wouldn't work. People watching didn't work. Drinking didn't work. Beating the shit out of punching bags didn't work. So far, the only thing that did work was getting off his ass and rooting out every piece of Hydra trash. Cut off one head and two more take its place? Bucky was gunning for its heart. Now if only Steve would get his head out of his ass. 

The sound of the door to the gym opening and hurried footsteps pulled Bucky from his darkening thoughts. A small woman rushed into the main part of the gym and swerved her head around until she spotted him. Her eyes lit up in something he hadn't seen directed his way in a long time; hope. 

“Hi,” She shuffled forward until she was about equal distance between him and the door she had just come through. “I thought there'd be more people in here.”

Bucky didn't say anything and she worried the gloves on her hands and shifted back and forth on her feet. And then she stopped, a flash of surprise crossing her face. “Wait, aren't you one of Thor's friends? And you're scary as fuck too!”

He narrowed his eyes, having absolutely no idea as to why she was here. His years of training in observation failing him with all the mixed signals flying of this girl. 

“Do you think you can look scary at the next people who come through that door?”

As if summoned, the door opened again, the rusted hinges screeching in protest. The girl had disappeared into the locker rooms just as two men appeared. Red faced and reeking of liquor, they came to a halt when they saw him. 

“Hey, man, you seen a girl come in here?” The taller of the two asked, his short blond hair sticking to his forehead. 

The other one, a brunette with close cropped curls, held his hands out int front of his chest vulgarly. “Short little thing, big...”

Projecting the desire to beat them barehanded until they welcomed death, Bucky stuffed all the venom he could muster into the next two words he spoke. “Get out.”

Both men raised their hands, already backing away. “Didn't mean to disturb you.” Then they turned tail and scuttled out of the gym. It was disappointing actually and Bucky gave a full minute of thought to chasing after them anyway. 

Bucky found an empty locker room when he went looking for the girl. Strange because there were no other doors save for the one he had just used and no windows to crawl through. He doubted she'd be the type to try and climb through an air vent.

“Are they gone?”

The voice came from a set of lockers to his left. “Why are you in there?”

There was a sigh and a soft thud. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“And now.”

One locker, 234, rattled uselessly. “I think its safe to assume my ability to make decisions has been proven flawed for the night.” 

Having a conversation with a woman locked in a locker was a little odd but he found himself enjoying it. “Just tonight?”

Another sigh and some shifting of fabric. “Not just tonight, but if I go down that road then I'll have to analyze all the bad choices that led me here and that's a slippery slope that started in second grade when that kid who used to lick crayons asked me to be his valentine. Frankly, I just don't have the heart tonight. Or the tequila.”

She poked a finger lacquered with silver polish out through one of the venting holes near the top. “Help a girl out? There's a spider web in here and I don't see the spider.”

Bucky snorted and opened the locker door without any trouble. She was the saddest little thing he'd seen in a long time. Not like a crushing depression sad, but like a puppy outside in the rain. 

“Thanks for the assist.” She said as she stepped out, dusting ruined web off the shoulders of her coat. “I'll see you around.”

He recognized her now. Thor's girl's intern. They'd never been introduced but he'd seen her together with either Thor or Dr. Foster a handful of times over the last several months. 

“Why were they following you?”

She had been walking toward the door but stopped and turned around with one hand on her hip. The effect she was going for was ruined by the wool pea coat. “I think you know why.” 

He did know why. He could remember Steve sticking up for harassed girls every damn day of the week and having his ass kicked each time. He remembered beating some jackass who had cornered his, now long dead, sister, Rebecca, in an alley across from their apartment. She had cried and said it wasn't the first time. Their mother had sent her to live with their aunt back in Indiana. 

It didn't sit well with him at all to let her leave on her own. It turned his stomach. “If you give me twenty minutes, we can walk back to the tower together.”

She had a nice smile and offered it up to him. “That's considerate, but I'm actually going home. I just got sidetracked by those assholes.” He must have showed his confusion because she elaborated a moment later. “I don't live at the tower. I mean I was offered a place but Barton kept sneaking into my kitchen and eating all my cookies. And you know, a little distance is good, right?”

Being at the tower was suffocating. Its why he was here in Brooklyn using the same gym he'd taught Steve to fight in before the war rather than use Stark's shiny and sentient gym. It offered better equipment for a super soldier, even for a knockoff like him, but he hated having a conversation with a disembodied voice while he was trying to shower after a workout. 

“Still, at least let me walk you to your building.” He said, “Don't want to undo all my hard work.” 

She looked amused. “Hard work, huh? Did you even say more than two words to them?” His silence appeared to be answer enough and she burst into a fit of chuckles. “Alright, alright, I'll wait.” And then she plopped down on a bench with a good view of the showers.

He fixed her with a look that lasted all of two seconds before she jumped up with her hand raised in surrender. “Fine, but if those bozos come back, I'm hopping in the shower with you.” Then she gave him a saucy wink and slipped out through the door. 

He smirked and went about getting cleaned up, hurrying though his usual routine. When he came out of the gym, he saw her circling the punching bag he had been abusing earlier. She poked at it with one finger and then nodded to herself before turning to face him with a start. “All done?”

“Ready when you are.” His smirk said he'd seen her and the bag. 

She sashayed past him with her chin elevated and a grin on her lips. 

He locked up and and escorted her down the street as she wove elaborate tales of her travels with Jane and hilarious accounts of Thor's more mundane habits; like how he cleans his hammer while he's in the shower and sings Asgardian shanties at the top of his lungs. Bucky finds himself grateful that he doesn't share a floor with Thor and that all the walls in the private quarters are soundproofed. 

Eventually they stop outside of her building, a red brick with a call button panel to the left of the entrance. He finds her name written in a loopy scrawl with shimmery green ink. “Thank you shining knight, I'm afraid I don't have a handkerchief to offer you as a token of my gratitude.” She sighed with an over dramatic flare. “But I have stickers if you're interested.”

Well, how could he pass up an offer like that?

She gave him two gold stars for each thug that she stuck to his shirt. A blue smiley face that she stuck to the back of his hand for freeing her from the locker. A yellow smiley face for walking her home on his other, metal hand. And an extra silver star for restoring her faith in chivalry.

Two days later, he found a small paper box waiting for him in front of his door. Inside was a cupcake with chocolate icing and directions to meet her for coffee later in the afternoon.


	5. (Darcy & Jane) I'm The Best

Darcy sat between Jane and Erik on the roof of the old car dealership turned makeshift lab, kicking her legs out over the edge. Jane had finally tired herself out about twenty minutes previous and was now in an odd state of disbelief, her mouth opening occasionally but unable to say any words. Erik sat with his hands folded in his lap and his shoulders hunched, resigned to his fate. 

Deciding that she had tortured Jane long enough, Darcy reached into the waistband of her leggings and pulled out the palm sized rectangle that had warmed from her body heat. She held it out to her the hopeless scientist with a smile. “Now tell me how much you love me.” 

Jane's mouth was still opening and closing wordlessly, but there was more going on behind her eyes than the threat of helpless tears. 

It was Erik who spoke. “What's that, Darcy?”

Feeling all too smug with herself, she turned to the man on her other side. “This, good sir, is the hard drive I back up all of Jane's research on every night.”

Darcy turned back to Jane when she felt the other woman's small hand on her own. “Jane – are you crying?!”

“No!” She said, and hurriedly swiped at her eyes with the sleeve of her shirt. “I'm happy!”

“Go on, say it, 'I'm the best'.”

“You're the best.” And then she snatched the hard drive into her greedy little hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It wouldn't leave me alone. I had something else planned and then this happened.


	6. (Darcy & Howard) Ghostly Grandpappy

"Is that a doily?"

Darcy didn't answer and turned the volume up on her laptop. She should really invest in a new pair of headphones.

"Don't be like that, I said I was sorry."

She glared harder at the laptop in a petulant effort to ignore him. It's like she didn't know him at all. Even when he was alive, no one could ignore him for long which was probably what lead to his death. Well, murder. But that wasn't the point.

Howard knelt on the ground at the foot of her twin bed and stuck his face through the screen. "What's it going to take to get you to forgive me?"

Swallowing a snarl, she ripped the small buds out of her ears and sat up. "Time travel, so you can go back and stop your asshole self from lying to me in the first place."

His face morphed into a pinch. "I've had some ideas about time travel but I –" He stopped when he saw the quickly darkening expression on her face. "That's not the point. I didn't lie to you."

"No, you deliberately withheld information from me for twenty years. Did you know the whole time? Is that why you're here dolling out advice." She jumped off the bed to pace in front of the window. "Christ! You helped me with my homework!" She yelled with an accusing finger pointed at him as though the act of studying algebra was sacred.

"You're overreacting." He had placed both hands in front of him like he was approaching a wild animal. "Maybe you should –"

The black look she threw him, cut off his speech immediately. Closing here eyes she took three calming breaths before crossing her arms and looking at him. "Fine, if you want to talk about this then I want the all of the truth." He nodded his head, looking impossibly hopeless. Oh if the world could see him now.

"How long have you known that Tony was my father?"

With a defeated slump to his shoulders, he sat down heavily on the edge of her bed. Well, as heavily as the spirit of a dead man could. "I had just learned of you the night I died. Your mother had visited me in my D.C. office and told me. "

Darcy gave a short nod. "And why didn't you tell me?"

"And what was I supposed to tell you? 'Hi, your father is Tony Stark and I'm his father, Howard. But you can just call me Grandpappy.'." He stood up and began his own pacing. "How well do you think that would have gone over? When was the right age to tell you?"

"How about when I was thirteen and I was moved into a foster home for girls? Or when I was fifteen and I ran away? Or when I was eighteen and was kicked to the curb? Or when I was twenty-one and got so blind drunk on my birthday I had to have my stomach pumped? Or how about when I told you that Stark Industries had hired Jane and I and that we would be moving to New York?" She was shaking with the effort it took not to shout. Jane was just down the hall and she didn't want this conversation interrupted.

Howard had one finger pointed at her with his mouth open but it was a moment or two before he could form words. "Those are really good points and I don't have an answer." He maintained an accusatory tone.

"For years, I thought I didn't have any family and not once did you correct me. I didn't even know you were The Howard Stark, why do you look like you are twenty-five?"

Howard looked down to his 1940's suit and tie. "I was an engineer, not a witch doctor. I can't explain the supernatural."

"You know, some warning would have been nice before a legion of robots burst in through the doors and windows and kidnapped me." She turned away from him, unable to bear the sight of him and his resemblance to his son. Did she look like them at all? Jane had said she could see it after she learned the truth.

"And I'm sorry about that, SHIELD was never supposed to have all its secrets exposed." She felt the icy sensation of his touch on her shoulder and she half turned. "I'm sorry Darcy, I only ever wanted to protect you."

"I'm going to be mad for a while." She warned, saying sorry wasn't a magic cure-all.

He nodded his head, his mustache turned down in a frown. "Do you want me to leave?"

"No, let's watch a movie and then you can tell me funny stories from your youth."

They both settled against the headboard of her bed with the laptop between them. Some foreign French film from the 50's that Howard loved playing in black and white on the screen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I might include more adventures with Darcy and Howard, not sure yet.


	7. (Darcy/Bucky) Lamb and the Wolf

The woman before him was small by American standards. She had dark brown hair nearly the same shade as his own that fell in curls down her back. Her eyes were a darker blue and her pink lips were spread into a wide smile, almost too wide for her face. And she was curvy, he liked that but didn't understand why. 

“I didn't expect to find you for another couple of years.” 

He was supposed to put a bullet between her eyes. He was supposed to, but his hand didn't even twitch to the semi-automatic tucked into the holster under his jacket. All he could do was absorb everything about her from her appearance to the way the muscles in her face moved to her scent. 

When he didn't reply, her smile froze a notch below what it had been while her eyes searched his. “It's just, you always hear the stories about meeting your soulmate but you still have like a life plan, right?”

He couldn't do it. He couldn't harm her. He'd have to take her back to base and when they got there, he wouldn't let them harm her. She was his and she was light and warm even as her smile dimmed with his continued silence. 

“This isn't a false positive, is it?” She asked, choosing her words slowly and glancing around. Her shoulders curled in toward her sternum and she took a hesitant step back.

“You're mine.” He confirmed and the gears in his metal arm whirred with the need to reach out to her. He couldn't kill her but he couldn't let her leave either. He wanted her to run and he wanted to run with her but he just couldn't. It was almost as if there were physical chains tugging on him to return to his handlers.

Hope lit her eyes and she took a step forward. “You wouldn't think there'd be too many out there with our words, I guess.” She leaned forward and her smile returned full force. It nearly knocked the air out of his lungs. “I'm Darcy, by the way, Darcy Lewis.”

He didn't have a name to give her, he couldn't think of a name to give her. “Steve,” It was out of his mouth before he had even registered in his mind. He knew it wasn't right and he didn't know where it had come from, but for now he was Steve.

Darcy took another step forward, her smile so full of warmth he could nearly feel the heat on his skin. “Hi.”

Despite his inner panic, he felt one corner of his own mouth tick up in a grin. He couldn't remember the last time he had had cause to grin. Had he ever? “Hi.”

She looked down to her shuffling feet, a delicate blush staining her cheeks. When she looked back up, it was with her bottom lip held between her teeth and he thought that she was beautiful. 

“Have you eaten dinner yet? I know it's kinda late, but there's this diner not far from here that always has great pie.” She had taken another step closer and he found himself doing the same. 

Her offer reminded him of the mission he hadn't yet completed. The envelope sat heavy in his jacket pocket. He'd have to lure her to the rendezvous point and it made his gut twist uncomfortably. “I – uh – have to drop this off first.” He pulled the folded envelope from his jacket. “If you don't mind going with me?”

“Sure,” There was a clenching in his chest when her smile brightened and she stepped into his space. “It's a nice night for a walk.” He didn't want to take her there with them. She was too warm and bright for such a dark place. 

He lead her four blocks away from Culver's campus to a small strip mall. Not even half a block from their starting destination, she had looped her arm with his and hadn't let go. He had soon learned that she was a tactile person. She touched his bicep as she talks and brushed her hip against his leg as she walked. He had no memory of someone sharing such a causal touch with him. 

He wanted more. He wanted to hold her hand and feel her hair slip through his fingers. He wanted her to always look at him like she was right now; with warm eyes and an inviting smile. No one looked at him like that at the base, no one ever looked at him like that and it was addicting.

The sleek black van sitting in the parking lot was exactly where he left it two hours ago. Inside there would be a four man team waiting for him. He had worked with one of them before, but the team leader, Kovrov, had been a younger man then. He wouldn't be pleased with Darcy's presence. 

He looked to Darcy who was frowning now, her already tiny body shrinking slightly with the tightening of her muscles. Distantly, he realized that a woman would be weary of walking up to a van with no windows in the middle of the night with no one around. He tried to offer her a grin as though nothing was out of the ordinary and gave three sharp knocks to the back door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may do more with this one or I may not.


	8. (Darcy/Bucky) Lost Daughter Part 1

Bucky watched the thin wires spark where his arm used to be in a daze. Decades of programming and training hadn't prepared him for Stark's rage. That kick to the head still had his ears ringing. Steve and Stark looked like they had been put through a meat grinder and judging by the Wakanda Royal's expression, so did he. At least the King believed he wasn't responsible for his father death anymore. 

Unfortunately, he was still responsible for the death of Stark's parents. 

Bucky didn't hold it against Stark. He deserved every blow for killing Howard and his wife. God knew the guilt had nearly destroyed him once he remembered. But along with the crushing guilt, came knowledge long buried under decades of conditioning. The knowledge that the Stark line didn't end with Tony. There had been another person in the car that night. Wrapped up in a soft lavender blanket and a carrier made of hard pink plastic. 

“She's alive.” He had whispered around the blood in his mouth. “They still have her.”

He blacked out after that and woke up strapped into the King's stealth craft over Uzbekistan. Steve sat opposite him, the weight of the world bearing down on him. 

“Bucky,” Steve looked like he might keel over at any moment. 

He grunted to clear his throat of the phlegm that had collected in his sleep. “You look like shit.” Even though he probably looked worse off. 

Steve only had enough energy to lift one side of his mouth in a grin. “We can't all be as pretty as you.” 

There was a ping in the back of his mind, as though they had said these words to each other before. “Where's Stark?”

Steve nearly looked as old as he should be for a moment. “King T'Challa loaded Zemo onto the Avenger's Quinn Jet.” He sighed and Bucky hated himself just a little more for putting him in this position. “Tony'll take him to Germany to answer for his crimes. See if he can get the others released from Ross's custody. If not, when he's healed up, we'll collaborate and find his daughter.”

“Darcy.” He said, unable to stop himself. Steve gave him a blank look. “Howard said her name was Darcy.”

Steve nodded. “Get some sleep buddy, we won't be landing for a couple more hours.”

Bucky mumbled something along the lines of Steve catching some shut eye as well before drifting off into a blissfully dreamless sleep. 

Wakanda was unlike anything he could ever remember seeing before. A wondrous mesh of jungle and alien-future. T'Challa had a new arm built for him with vibranium components. His first thought as he rotated it back and forth, was that Darcy might try to lick it. It didn't have quite the same functionality as the arm she had built him, but it was better than anything anyone else on the planet could come up with. Barring the other, older Stark who would sooner launch him into orbit than help him. 

It was three months before Stark was ready to go. By that time Steve had managed a jailbreak for the others with the Widow's assistance. They had scattered into hiding for the time being. The Accords had also fallen through. Apparently, some of General Ross's past dealings with a Super Soldier Program had come to light and the other countries hadn't been impressed with his track record. 

The last time Bucky had seen Darcy had been just after he last woken from the ice, before his mission in DC. He had been transported from the bunker in Russia to a lab in Belarus and she'd given him a smile and his arm an upgrade. She'd been older too, between early and mid twenties if he had to guess. After the whole ordeal in DC they'd moved her around. She was always just out of reach. 

He'd managed to track her to Romania and was in the process of decrypting files on her next location when Steve and Interpol caught up with him. He'd handed a copy of everything over to Stark whose AI had pinpointed her location in the remote outback of Australia. The Widow and Wilson had gone undercover to confirm her location or retrieve new intelligence. 

She was there.

It was determined that Steve, Stark, Barton, and himself would go. No one had tried to talk Stark out of his involvement. He needed this in the worst way. It had been a fight to get him to agree to allow Bucky to come along and the only reason he was allowed to was because he had a rapport with Darcy. As messed up as it all was, she trusted him. Stark had nearly ground his teeth to dust at that fact. Barton and Steve would come along as support.

The plan was to land in Alice Springs, Australia and keep low profile until night fell where they'd hit the base some forty miles out of town. Darcy hadn't been tortured like he had been, but she'd been conditioned to rely on her Hydra handlers for everything. As far as she knew, the world had ended during WWI and she was helping rebuild it. She'd never known civilization as sheltered as they'd kept her. It was going to be a shock to her once they got her out of Hydra's hold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promise this one will be continued.


	9. Darcy the Dullahan

Plenty of people have thought Darcy strange or unusual throughout her life. Some had even said it to her face. Jane said it to her at least once a day. Usually in the morning when she added buttermilk to her coffee rather than the heavily sugared creamer Jane preferred. And alright, that was pretty strange, but not the strangest thing about Darcy. In fact, the things most people found unusual about her wasn't that one thing that really set her apart from everyone else. 

 

When Darcy was 13, a ward of the state and aspiring for the perfect winged liner under the florescent lighting of her middle school girls bathroom, her head rolled right off her shoulders. Of course, that wasn't all there was to it. This new development was proceeded by the breath in her lungs freezing and a sharp pinch around the base of her throat. It felt a lot like the time Mrs. O'Hara got mad and took the silver chain around Darcy's neck and twisted it until it cut off her air supply and pinched at the skin. Mrs. O'Hara didn't last long as a foster parent after that. 

 

After flopping around on the filthy restroom floor like a fish, Darcy realized she wasn't dead. She also realized that while her eyes could no longer see, she could sense everything around her. Every dip in the painted brick wall, the broken hair tie under the sink, and the smooth curve of the exposed pipes. 

 

It was fortunate for Darcy that she had watched a documentary just last night at a friends house about Area 51 and the types of tests government scientists would conduct on alien visitors. Darcy grabbed her detached head and executed a half barrel roll before flopping on her back and crab walking the rest of the way into the handicapped stall just before two other girls entered.   

 

To Darcy's eternal relief, her head could reattach. It took a bit of twisting in shaky hands to get it on just the right way for her to regain proper use of her head. And even regaining her sight and hearing and sense of smell (eww, one of those girls needs to lay off the fish taco's), she could still feel that newly developed sense, swirling inside her like smoke. 

 

Darcy didn't go back to her foster home after that. For the next five months, she ran and made it all the way to DC before she was finally caught breaking into the Central Public Library. And really, was it breaking in if the doors had been left unlocked? The responding officers thought she was just looking for a place to bunker down for the night, and while that was true (because Northeastern winters were fucking cold), she really wanted access to their internet and mythology section. 

 

By the time she was returned to her Social Worker in Boston, Darcy had decided she was a dullahan, maybe an alien, but dullahan for now. It made her wonder about her parents. Was her mother this mythical creature that had passed on the trait to Darcy? Was it her father? Were they both some type of mysterious creature? Would this affect her fertility? Why did they abandon her?

In the end, Darcy decided she could live a life without those answers. The deciding factor being that the search for them might land her on a slab in some mad scientist's lab. That one officer in DC had pressed her hard to reveal how she had gotten the scar on her neck to the point where his partner had had to step in. Likely, he thought it had been done to her by a second party rather than by her own genetics. Her social worker had asked her once and gotten no answer before moving her into a group girls home. 

 

And that was the end of that. She lead a normal life with few interruptions. There were still odd things like her aversion to gold or the uncontrollable urge to hurl things when she could feel people's eyes on her (her Earth Science teacher, Mr. Hass, had held a grudge against her until the day she graduated for the water bottle she had thrown at his head). She focused hard on her studies and got into Culver on a scholarship for foster kids. Darcy was even hired as an intern, though she later learned that it was unpaid and she was the only applicant. All was well.

 

Then Thor landed. She could feel it, seconds before the RV made impact with him. Like her, he was something other. Unlike her, he didn't seem to notice. Thor didn't outright claim to be anything other than the Son of Odin, like that was enough. 

 

As it turned out, that was enough information. Thor was a god. A fucking god. Darcy believed him, Jane thought he was an alien (which yeah, but there was magic in him too, she could feel it), and Erik thought they were all mad and stopped drinking the drink tap water. 

 

The first time anyone had caught onto her otherness was when Thor's alien-god friends showed up. They greeted Thor (the big puppy) with hugs and vows to return him to his rightful place in the stars. The shorter of the Warrior's Three was the first to notice and gave her a long considering look but didn't say anything. Next was the woman, who shared a brief, silent conversation with the first man while watching Darcy. The blonde one seemed more interested in the contents of her sweater and the big red-head had found their stash of pop tarts and seemed content to gorge himself. 

 

Then Thor’s dick of a brother sent the family murder-bot to kill him and ended up setting the town on fire.

 

She could feel it seconds before it happened. A sick feeling in her gut that was purged with a cry of Thor's name just before the space robot backhanded him and ended his life. She could sense it with that strange smokey sixth sense of hers before she saw it. A dark shadow emerging from the side of the wrecked dinner, taking on a tall and thin humanoid shape. It was terrifying and when the hunched thing turned toward her she nearly lost control of her bladder. She knew it was looking at her even though the large sockets where its eyes should be were empty. Yet, it didn't feel malevolent. 

 

So focused on the creature, she didn't notice that Jane had rushed back to Thor’s side with Erik hot on her heels. She didn’t hear the whistle on the wind as a hammer forged from the heart of a dying star sliced through the air. But she felt the electricity of a soul returning to its body as it sizzled up her spine and caused her knees to give out. 

 

Darcy looked away from the shadow creature to see Thor with his arm outstretched and holding the legendary hammer. When she looked back to the dinner, the creature was gone but the chill that it had brought still clung to her skin.

 

_ It was a frosty autumn morning in Savoy, Massachusetts when Margery Graves heard the cry of a baby. She had been collecting eggs for her and her husband, Will’s, breakfast from their chicken coop but stopped to listen, sure she was just hearing things. After all, what would a baby be doing way out here on their farm? _

 

_ Another cry pierced the quiet morning and Margery went to investigate. The pre-dawn fog hadn’t yet rolled out, so she didn’t immediately see the bundle of burlap at the base of the apple tree. She reached the bundle just as the baby let loose a third cry. A pretty little thing, with dark wisps of hair. _

 

_ Margery reached out to pick the child up when movement alerted her to another presence. Looking up, she saw a figure just inside the tree line. A ghastly creature stood there, holding its head in its hands. It had long dark hair that hung down low enough to catch dead leaves and twigs in its tangles. Even from this distance, Margery could see its eyes dart around until they landed on her. _

 

_ The world around her grew dim and it became harder to breathe the longer she stared at the creature. It took a step forward and Margery tipped back far enough to land on her rear.  _

 

_ “Margery Graves.” It called across to her. It's voice a haunting melody on a breeze. _

 

_ When her husband went out to look for her fifteen minutes later it was to find her laying on the ground beneath the apple tree. He’d rush to her and call her name while he felt for a pulse. But she had gone. Beside her, Will would see a baby wrapped in burlap. The poor thing whimpering and wriggling and nearly freezing. _

**Author's Note:**

> I'm creed-88 on tumblr, feel free to leave prompts in my ask box.


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